Chapter Text
Until the bookstore he was just a pain in my arse—pain in everyone’s, I mean, but a pain was all he was to me. Bookstore was where it started…
There’s a city about an hour out from the town of Teufort, and by city standards it ain’t much, but next to Teufort it’s a fair gleaming metropolis. Hardly ever anything to go to the city for that I can’t get in town, or by mail order. Hardly ever anything I need the supply trains don’t bring or I can’t go out and find. But I’ve been reading the same two novels the last five years and my Paterson’s about to disintegrate on me and when there’s no shooting going on, well sometimes a man gets bored. And the city’s got a bookstore.
I picked up a mystery that I couldn’t recall reading before, even if it was an old one, and a book of horror stories—bit trash, maybe, but good for a laugh if it doesn’t turn out to be good for a fright—and Gulliver’s Travels, which I had read, or at least begun, back when I was in school. Anyway, Swift’s a good read, ought to hold up for a few rereads. Hope as much, anyway, can’t hardly keep a library in the van. I try to travel light, but I like to have something to read on hand.
I was backing up to let a lady through when I backed right out of the aisle and right into someone else.
“Sorry! My fault there,” I turned to help—no sense in being impolite to folks, and they may not feel it as keen as in Teufort, but half the folks in the city are just looking for a reason to want the mercs out. City’s not far from the warehouses and factories we sometimes get sent to fight over, after all. Never hurts to be nice, try and win a point in the company’s favour.
“No, I should have been—“
We stood at the same time, both of us holding onto the book I’d knocked out of his hand, and both of us realizing at once that we weren’t on the same team. Neither one the type to let much show, but I could still see the faint traces of surprise on him give way to a more familiar sneer.
“Well well. So the bushman is literate after all.” He smirked, and if it wasn’t for the voice in the back of my head reminding me to play nice in front of the townies, I’d have wiped it clear off his mug.
“Maybe I apologized too soon.” I rolled my eyes at him, let go of his book.
He tucked it under his arm with the others. “Hm. I didn’t expect to see you here. Out amongst the civilized people of the world.”
“I can be just as civilized as the next bloke.” I said.
He just laughed. We were both headed for the counter, though. I figured we’d both be out of the shop soon, and on our separate ways.
“Go on.” I waved him forward to the single register. Still couldn’t say why. Pure contrariness, maybe, just to prove I was polite.
“Merci.”
“Just quit dawdling and buy your fancy French books.” I huffed—I can be polite, but that man’s enough to test the patience of a saint, way he practically lounges even when he’s walking, just making an obstacle of himself.
“As if this backwater hamlet sells books en francais.” He moaned to me, like I cared about listening to his complaints, but I guess I did listen, anyway. “And I cannot bear to read the way a book is mangled when it is translated into English. Mark Twain.”
“Really?”
“I enjoy satire.” He shrugged. “If there is one great American writer, then Mark Twain is he.”
He placed his books on the counter, the leatherbound Twain and a cheap pulp paperback that he attempted to keep out of my line of sight.
“Is that a spy novel?” I grinned, putting my own books down at my end of the counter.
“I am picking it up for a… teammate.” He frowned, before his eyes lit on the copy of Gulliver’s Travels. “Swift?”
“I enjoy satire.”
I couldn’t tell you if he had the good grace to blush, but I reckon he looked as chastised as any spy’s ever looked.
“Maybe when you finish Swift and I finish Twain, we should trade.”
“Careful, sounds almost like treason.”
“Economics.” He shook his head. “I will still kill you.”
“Yeah, well, maybe if I see you around we will, and maybe if I don’t see you, you can, but I wouldn’t count on it.”
“Of course.” He finished paying and picked up his bag. “I forgot who I was talking to. I don’t relish borrowing anything from a practitioner of… Jarate.”
He shuddered so theatrically at the word that I couldn’t help laughing, and he glared at me, but he also didn’t leave the shop as fast as he could have.
“Maybe I’ll kill you.” I said, shouldering past him at the door.
“Maybe you will.” He caught up to me, walking casually along in the same direction and sounding almost criminally unconcerned. “It would be a magnificent stroke of luck for you.”
“I’ve done it before.” I growled.
He just shrugged, like it was a statement of opinion instead of an honest fact, and walked right alongside me all the way out to the little downtown public parking lot.
“Can I help you?”
“Not necessary, thank you.” And if anything the spook looked even more pleased with himself.
He stopped at the silvery little convertible parked next to my battered old Land Rover.
“Flashy, but what have you got under the hood?”
“This is a Deesse.” He drew himself up. “The engine may be four-cylinder, but this was the model to win Monte Carlo two years ago. She has independent hydraulic suspension. Whatever the goddess lacks in power, she more than makes up for in other arenas. She reaches and maintains high speeds on any surface and she offers the smoothest ride you could ever dream of. Please, do not mistake style for ‘flash’. Style, the Deesse possesses. Flash is tacky.”
He ended on one of those sneers he seems to like—probably practices them in front of the mirror. And honestly, I suppose I was impressed—I hadn’t expected him to actually know a blessed thing about the car. Figured he bought it for looks.
“And I do not live out of her.” He added.
“Nah, wouldn’t be very comfortable.” I snorted, crossing my arms and leaning back against the side of my camper. “Haven’t even got a proper backseat for inviting company to.”
“Oh, and I suppose you entertain plenty of ‘sheilas’ in that filthy van of yours?”
“Piss off.” I walked around to the driver’s side, wishing like hell I had a better comeback than ‘piss off’. Just because I could take someone to bed in my camper didn’t mean my bed saw much action, any more than owning a damn ‘Deesse’ meant the spook could win Monte Carlo.
I stowed my books up front and pretended to be busy until I saw him drive off, then I walked down to a restaurant a couple blocks away, nice enough to feel a good sight fancier than eating out in Teufort ever did—and hell, the diner in Teufort was an improvement over eating on-base, or killing, cleaning, and roasting something out in the desert—but not near so fancy that I’d have to worry about running into the Spy again.
Part of me half-hoped I might anyway, though the little lot was the closest parking unless you got lucky and someone pulled away from the kerb as you pulled up, so… I mean, not like he’d bother driving if he was going to eat there. It wasn’t a greasy spoon, but the city had a couple restaurants nicer. Up until he got the last word, it had been… well, fun. It had been fun riling the bloke up and letting him poke at me. A verbal version of our usual fights. Not quite polite, maybe, but we weren’t hacking away at each other.
And when I’m not fighting for my life… Well, I guess when I’m not fighting for my life, I’m free to notice things about him I don’t usually look for. The way his suit fits, the way his eyes light up at a challenge, if only a conversational one. Things I always try not to notice about a bloke, for the same reason I’ve never had a lady around the bed in my camper, for the reason I avoid most people, reason I haven’t much looked back since I left home…
I didn’t love him after the bookstore, I didn’t even like him. But I wanted to be around him a bit more, outside of trying to gut each other.